News Archive (6192)
Amador narcotics team arrested an ‘ecstasy’ dealer and a robbery suspect
Written by Tom
Amador County – The Amador County Combined Narcotics Enforcement Team arrested two El Dorado County men on Dec. 21, including an “ecstasy” drug dealer and a robbery suspect, after a sting operation was arranged to purchase 100 pills from the dealer, at a parking lot in Plymouth.
Amador County Undersheriff Jim Wegner released details of the investigation and arrests Wednesday, saying that “among several investigations during the month of December 2011, the Amador County Combined Narcotics Enforcement Team (ACCNET) conducted an investigation involving the sales of Methylene-Dioxy-Meth-Amphetamine (MDMA) known more commonly as Ecstasy.”
Wegner said the “suspect, Gerardo Ramos Gonzalez, 22, of El Dorado was arrested at the scene” of an arranged drug purchase “and booked into the Amador County Jail, charged with sales of a controlled substance, possession for sale of a controlled substance and transportation of a controlled substance.”
Wegner said “ACCNET then executed a search warrant at Gonzalez’s residence,” in the 6000 block of El Dorado Street in unincorporated El Dorado, about 4 miles southwest of Placerville, in El Dorado County. “During the execution of that search warrant, Joseph Dwayne Walters, 33, of El Dorado was contacted and detained, and subsequently arrested and booked into the El Dorado County Jail on an active El Dorado County arrest warrant for robbery.”
During the “investigation an ACCNET agent was successful in completing two undercover purchases of MDMA from a suspected Ecstasy dealer,” Wegner said. “During the undercover investigation the suspect was marketing the MDMA” as “Molly” pills “which is indicative of pure MDMA. The suspect represented that he could sell quantities of Molly ranging from 100 to 200 pills.”
On Dec. 21, “an undercover agent arranged a transaction of 100 MDMA pills to occur that evening in a parking lot in Plymouth. The suspect arrived as arranged and was detained without incident by Amador County Sheriff’s Deputies and ACCNET Agents.”
Wegner said a “search of the suspect resulted in the recovery of a fictitious Pepsi can with a hidden compartment. The can contained a baggy, which contained 100 MDMA capsules.”
Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Amador County – Sutter Creek City Council on Monday made sign code revision their Planning Commission’s top priority through the fiscal year’s end.
City Manager Sean Rabe said the city does not have the money to put toward $11,000 to $15,000 in estimated costs to update its sign code.
Rabe said Planning Commission meetings have been canceled lately due to a lack of business, but regular scheduling would allow Commissioners to work on sign code. Vice Mayor Sandy Anderson asked about a joint Council/Commission meeting, and Councilman Gary Wooten said it was discussed in the past, but never scheduled.
Councilman Tim Murphy said work such as “view-sheds,” and Sphere of Influence Zoning overlay of the city, in relation to draft county General Plan, were some issues he thought should be addressed. He said the proposed action was to “formally add this as a project for the Planning Commission,” and the council approved that on a 4-0 vote.
Mayor Linda Rianda asked if the Commission could finish the sign code update by the end of the fiscal year. Commissioner Mike Kirkley said they could, but would need in-house staff support, not consultants.
Commissioner Robin Peters said “the sign ordinance is a disaster now, and needs a lot of work” to clean it up, clarify it make it less ambiguous, and “whip it into shape.” He said “it has proven to be a slightly larger task than we originally anticipated,” but he thought they could finish in 6 months, if they have regularly scheduled meetings. Peters said they have the framework regulation context in place and need to build around it.
Anderson asked if part of the Commission’s task would be to decide who enforces the sign ordinance. Rabe said city staff could do more to make businesses aware of sign permit applications, when selling business licenses, and then follow up on applications. Kirkley said enforcement was not up to the Commission.
Rabe said “it is not being enforced the way it needs to be enforced” and “frankly, is not being enforced.” He said permits are given after signs are hung, and approved by staff if the signs are obviously in compliance. It is done so sign applications can be scheduled for a Planning Commission meeting. Kirkley said public meetings should not address sign permits, and it should be a city administrative duty.
Regarding enforcement, Peters said former Police Chief Rob Duke “had no intention of sending officers to businesses” regarding sign code. Peters suggested using a current employee “who spends a lot of time behind a windshield,” following the example of Jackson, where public works & building inspector Larry White handles enforcement.
Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Jackson city staff hosted workshops with businesses on new and pending city sign code
Written by Tom
Amador County – About 5 business owners attended a Jackson city staff workshop Wednesday on current and pending sign code.
City Manager Mike Daly said “everybody here is an important part of the business community,” and “we need to get comments in writing from you.”
City Planner Susan Peters and Daly discussed the city’s existing but little-enforced sign code, and draft changes the Planning Commission made using public comment with a notable lack of business owners’ input. Daly said the City Council realized they “need to get feedback from the businesses into the process.”
Among current code, outlawed are internally lit “cabinet signs” that use anything more than lettering and a logo. Proposed new code includes a 6-foot height limit. She said the Planning Commission left in a five-year “amortization,” requiring compliance within 5 years. Peters said “if the business community does not support it then the Council will not adopt it.” Or existing pole signs could be allowed to be “grandfathered in,” again at the Council’s discretion, but new signs would have to meet the new code limits, if it were approved.
One woman asked about middle ground between a monument sign (preferred by the Commission) and existing 35-foot tall signs. Peters said it could be 25 feet or somewhere in between, but it would again be up to the Council. Peters said she thought seeing a Raley’s sign as you drive into town is distracting from the beauty of the view. She said traffic speed may also help determine locations for signs.
Peters said “it’s never popular for us to enforce rules.” Daly said the Council has “worked hard to establish a city that is business-friendly.”
Maura Gillman, co-owner of Mel & Faye’s Restaurant, said monument signs were ineffective in some areas of Jackson, because lettering was mostly too small to see. Bart Gillman said Mel’s old location was close to the highway, but the new location, far back off the road needs the back-lit signs to “pull people off the highway the best we can.” He said “I think your timing is very bad.” He said he has found that his beer signs are also out of compliance.
Maura thought businesses that operate at night should be allowed to have lit signs, and use timers. One woman suggested a dimmer, but Bart said dimmers don’t work on fluorescent bulbs. Daly said signs could be partly lit.
Maura Gillman said: “I think we’ve established that lit signs are needed” and “anybody that is open at night should be allowed to have” lit signs.
One woman said clutter of banners & temporary signs “annoys the heck out of me,” but she didn’t have a problem with Mel & Faye’s or Jackson Tire’s lit signs.
Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Amador County – It will begin to sound a lot like Serbian Christmas at about 1 p.m. Saturday, when black powder blank gunfire will again fill the Jackson air as local families celebrate in the traditional way to mark the Serbian Christmas.
Patti Busch of the Jackson Business and Community Association announced the plans of local Serbian orthodox church members who plan to mark the Serbian Christmas, with the Jackson tradition at three locations in Jackson, including in front of the National Hotel on Main Street, at the Saint Sava Church North Main Street, and at the Saint Sava Mission on Broadway.
Busch’s announcement said “it’s Serbian Christmas,” and “Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas from our proud Serbian neighbors.”
Busch said Beau Gillman of Matich Vukovich Insurance asked the Jackson Business and Community Association “to help get out the word that this coming Saturday, Jan. 7, is Serbian Christmas.”
For more than 100 years, Busch said, “our Serbian-American population has marked this day with a volley of rifle shots to announce that Christ is born.” This year the short parade will take place on Main Street in Jackson around 1 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 7, with a police escort and the firing of the rifles in front of The National Hotel.
Busch said: “I think that the rifles are also fired at Saint Sava’s Church on North Main Street and at Saint Sava Mission on Broadway.”
The tradition dates back to more than 100 years in Jackson, and was brought from some old country practices, which in some Serbian practices included firing guns at dawn on Christmas eve, or an early morning departure by family members to go and select and cut a “badnjak” log, to burn on Christmas Eve, according to Wikipedia. Another Serbian Christmas day celebration is announced at dawn by church bells and by shooting guns or “celebratory mortars” called “prangijas.”
A 1987 L.A. Times article online, “Why, It Sounds Like a Serbian Christmas,” by Charles Hillinger, said that even then, 24 years ago, it was a tradition with more than a century of history in Jackson, combining Old West and old Serbian traditions. Saint Sava church members and families in the last couple of years have resumed the parade tradition down Main Street in Jackson.
Busch said: “Be prepared for some bang-banging noise around 1 p.m. But know that you are safe and all is well. It’s your neighbors celebrating and keeping alive the rich traditions of the old country, and wishing you every happiness this Holiday Season, with great prosperity and good health in the New Year.”
Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Amador County – The dry winter has California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection on alert state-wide, after Tuesday’s first snow survey of the year.
CDF Information and Education Officer Daniel Berlant said Tuesday’s first snow survey “has CAL FIRE officials concerned about increased fire danger. The lack of precipitation across the state has led to one of the driest winters on record,” with “statewide water content is at 19 percent of normal.”
Berlant said despite many areas of California “experiencing cooler temperatures, the drier than normal conditions, coupled with wind events and low humidity, have frequently increased the fire danger over the past month.” He said Cal-Fire crews last month “responded to an increased number of wildfires for a typical December.”
Chief Ken Pimlott, the Cal-Fire director said “fire activity in Northern California during winter is very rare, where snow covered mountains and rain soaked hillsides typically keep the fire danger relatively low. We will be monitoring the rain levels over the next couple months, as it will be an indicator of the type of fire activity spring and summer will bring.”
In response to the above normal December activity, Cal-Fire “has been able to increase its staffing using its 4,700 permanent employees with the help of Cal-Fire inmate fire crews.” Berlant said “in many areas Cal-Fire has cancelled burn days or even banned debris burning. The public is asked to be extra cautious due to the dry conditions, especially on windy days.”
For more fire safety tips visit ReadyForWildfire.org or fire.ca.gov.
Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Amador County – The California Department of Water Resources’ first snow survey of the season on Tuesday found snow levels at 21 percent of the date’s average, but said that the State Water Project was in good shape with storage lake levels high thanks to near-record snow and rain last year.
Department of Water Resources public information officer Ted Thomas said “2011 illustrates how weather-driven water supply conditions can dramatically change. The initial 2011 estimate was that the State Water Project would be able to deliver 25 percent of the slightly more than 4 million acre-feet requested. As winter took hold and storms swept the state, a near-record snowpack and heavy rains resulted in deliveries of 80 percent of requests in 2011.”
He said the final allocation was 50 percent in 2010, 40 percent in 2009, 35 percent in 2008, and 60 percent in 2007. The last 100 percent allocation of water to demand in the State Water Project was in 2006. Thomas said it is “difficult to achieve even in wet years because of Delta pumping restrictions to protect threatened and endangered fish.”
“Lake Oroville in Butte County, the State Water Project’s principal storage reservoir with a capacity of 3.5 million acre-feet, is still 72 percent full thanks to last winter’s heavy storms. That is 114 percent of average for the date,” Thomas said. “Lake Shasta north of Redding, the federal Central Valley Project’s (CVP) largest reservoir with a capacity of 4.5 million acre-feet, is 68 percent full (106 percent of average).
“San Luis Reservoir in Merced County, an important reservoir south of the Delta, is 95 percent full (137 percent of average for the date). San Luis, with a capacity of 2, 027,840 acre-feet, is an important source of water for both the SWP and the CVP when pumping from the Delta is restricted or interrupted.”
Thomas said “mountain snow that melts into reservoirs, streams and aquifers in the spring and summer provides approximately one-third of the water for California’s households, farms and industries.
“The Department of Water Resources operates and maintains the State Water Project, provides dam safety and flood control and inspection services, assists local water districts in water management and water conservation planning, and plans for future statewide water needs.
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
State water department’s first snow survey reflects driest season in 15 years
Written by Tom
Amador County – The California Department of Water Resources made its first snow survey of the year Tuesday, finding the driest winter month conditions in 15 years in the Sierra Nevada mountains.
California Department of Water Resources information officer Ted Thomas announced details on the first 2012 survey of California’s mountain snowpack, calling it “among the driest for the date on record.”
Manual and electronic readings showed the snowpack’s statewide water content is at 19 percent of the Jan. 3 average. Figures were 7 percent of the average April 1 measurement when snowpack is normally at its peak, before the spring melt. Thomas said despite Tuesday’s dry conditions, “water managers remain cautiously optimistic about this year’s water supply.”
Water Resources Director Mark Cowin said: “Fortunately, we have most of winter ahead of us, and our reservoir storage is good.” Results of Tuesday’s manual readings off Highway 50 near Echo Summit showed 7.1 inches of snow at Lyons Creek, (elevation 6,700 feet), and 4 inches of snow at Phillips Station, (at elevation 6,800). The “Alpha” location (7,600 feet elevation) had zero inches of snow, as did Tamarack Flat, at elevation 6,500.
Thomas said that “electronic readings indicate that water content in the northern mountains is 21 percent of normal for the date, 8 percent of the April 1 average. Central Sierra levels are 13 percent of normal for Jan. 3, and 5 percent of the April 1 average. Southern Sierra levels are 26 percent of the Jan.3 average, and 9 percent of the April 1 average.
Water Resources and cooperating agencies conduct manual snow surveys around the first of the month from January to May. The manual surveys supplement and check the accuracy of real-time electronic readings from sensors up and down the state.
The Department’s “initial estimate is that the State Water Project will be able to deliver 60 percent of the slightly more than 4 million acre-feet of water requested by the 29 public agencies that supply more than 25 million Californians and nearly a million acres of irrigated farmland,” Thomas said. “The 60 percent delivery estimate is largely based on the known quantify of carryover reservoir storage. Unknown is how much snow and rain the state will get the rest of this winter.”
Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
East Bay Municipal Utility District plans public hearings in Jackson and San Andreas
Written by Tom
Amador County – East Bay Municipal Utility District will host two local public hearings next week to take comments on its revised draft Program Environmental Impact Report for its Water Supply Management Program 2040. The hearings will be 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 11 at the Jackson Civic Center (33 Broadway) and 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 12 at the San Andreas Town Hall (24 Church Hill Road). East Bay Municipal will also hold a public hearing 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 17 at its Oakland Headquarters.
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Sutter Amador Hospital announces first birth for 2012
Written by Tom
Amador County – Sutter Amador Hospital announced that its first baby of the year, little Eva Mae Casey, was born Monday, Jan. 1, to be the hospital’s first baby born in 2012.
Sutter Amador Hospital said little “Eva Mae Casey made her debut on Monday, January 2 at 5:13 p.m., making her the first baby to be born at Sutter Amador Hospital in Amador County this year.”
Parents Marissa and Blaze Casey of Wilseyville were delighted to have their 7-pound, 11-ounce little girl be the first baby born in 2012. Eva Mae also has a big sister, Adriana, 4 ½.
To celebrate the first baby born in 2012, Sutter Amador Hospital’s new nurse midwife, April Boitano, presented the Casey family with a gift basket full of newborn supplies including diapers, diaper wipes, breastfeeding supplies, baby clothes, and teddy bears. Each year, the Sutter Amador Hospital Family Birth Center staff donates all items in the gift basket for the New Year baby.
Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Amador County – Sutter Creek City Council on Tuesday approved $1,000 to search for grants to fund “Commons Projects” but denied funds for a related “visioning workshop.”
The council approved paying $1,000 to consultants Rene Chapman and Karen Dickerson to research grants for the “Commons Project,” which would start by creating public gathering areas on and around the new Main Street bridge project.
The council voted 4-0 to approve the funding, and 3-1 to deny a $4,500 funding request for a Commons Project visioning workshop. To start the meeting, the council voted 4-0 (with Councilman Jim Swift absent) to select Linda Rianda as Mayor, and Sandy Anderson as Mayor Pro Tempore, for 2012.
Anderson dissented in the Visioning funding denial, and said she would prefer to hear what the council would get for the $4,500. She noted that the estimate did not include drawings, which would cost $2,500 more.
Rianda and the council directed staff to get details of what the city would get for $4,500, and also to get information from the Commons Project committee on “what you would do with funding toward moving forward with Visioning.”
Councilman Gary Wooten said City Manager Sean Rabe and Councilman Tim Murphy could lead a visioning workshop as well as consultants, the majority agreed they needed to fund the visioning. Anderson said they have “exhausted” the city’s volunteer resources and “used a lot of people” who should be paid for their work. Murphy moved to put the funds toward the committee, but it was agreed such an action was not part of the agenda.
Rabe said he would work with the Commons Project subcommittee, with Anderson and Planning Commissioner Frank Cunha, to discuss a workshop. Rene Chapman said she suggested the Commons Project visioning to connect the city and get community support for the project’s grant.
Cunha said the four-phase project would start with 60 feet of area on either side of the new bridge project, and may include public seating or gathering areas, but the need was to get public input on what the people would want the Commons Project to entail and look like. He said Sutter Creek has a lot of common areas that need to be looked at.
They discussed having a well-promoted Commons Project committee meeting and workshop to discuss what people wanted. Cunha said “we have virtually no outside seating,” and it cannot change over night. He said “that’s why we need a comprehensive master plan for downtown.”
He said “before we go too far, we need public input to see what people want” in public commons areas.
Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
